“Well, well, well. Look who’s back already.” Rodney held the front door open for Quang and Selene, staring at his watch while keeping it open with his other hand. “Two days in a row? You’re spoiling me, Quang.”

“What can I say? You’ve got a magnetic personality. Is it alright if we come in? It’s not like you’re busy or anything.” Quang peeked past Rodney’s head and into his empty studio, darting his eyes around in an exaggerated manner.

“Come right on in. It’s not often I get such esteemed guests,” Rodney said as he propped the door open with his foot and stretching one arm out while bowing his head.

“Not often you get guests period.” Quang stepped inside the studio first with Selene right behind, still sorrowed by her defeat. With only a glance Rodney could tell that she was upset despite her attempt to conceal her face.

“Got bad news?” He asked after locking the front door. Rodney crossed his arms again while looking at Selene. She kept her head down, avoiding eye contact with him.

“No. We finally got a lead as to where Vic might be.”

“Really?” Rodney stepped forward, now looking at Quang. “What did you find out?”

“Does the name Ingwersen ring any bells for you?”

“Of course it does! Do you know anything about them?” Rodney asked back.

Quang scratched the back of his head as his looked up towards the ceiling. “I want to say ‘yes’ but honestly I’m drawing a blank right now.”

“And that’s exactly how they’d like it. They’re Isla Lucrecia’s wealthiest family. But it’s hard to stay in the shadows when you’re profiting off everyone else’s suffering.”

“What do you mean by that?” Selene asked. Her sniveling had stopped but there was still a subtle red tinge in her eyes.

Rodney grabbed one of the folding chairs in the corner of the room and plopped it onto the ground. “You two might want to grab a seat. I have a feeling this conversation is going to last a while.” Rodney sat down in the seat backwards, resting his arms on the backside of the chair.

Quang and Selene gave each other a look. “You have to be anywhere soon?” Quang asked. Selene responded by shaking her head. Both went to grab their own chairs and sat down in front of the studio owner.

“The Ingwersen family has been in this city for a long, long time. Probably longer than I’ve been alive. Don’t know much about their family history prior to my arrival here, but I know my fair share about what they’ve done during my time in Isla Lucrecia.”

“They were that influential, huh?” Quang asked.

“I guess you could say that. They weren’t ‘influential’ to me because I wouldn’t take their nonsense.”

“What did they do?” Selene inquired. Her mind had been taken off her necklace and was invested in what Rodney had to say.

“All sorts of crazy stuff,” Rodney said as he waved a hand in the air, looking to the side. “They’re probably the biggest reason why Isla Lucrecia is the way it is now. Robbery. Extortion. Disappearances.”

“Then how come I’ve never heard of them until now? I’ve been here my entire life, and this is the first time I’ve learned anything about the Ingwersens,” Quang butted in.

“That’s because you always have your head in the clouds, living in your own little world. I’ve mentioned them before, but you probably weren’t listening,” Rodney snapped back in response.

“Sorry. I won’t interrupt again.”

“Good. Now, back to the Ingwersens. They live way over in that uppity old Doughard section of Isla Lucrecia. The figureheads of the family never step out of their own slice of the city unless they absolutely have to. But they’ve got plenty of people underneath them to do their dirty work.

It was decades ago when I first encountered them. I was just starting my career as a stuntman. Now, what movie was it?” Rodney tapped his finger to his chin and looked towards the ceiling. “I think it was Sunrise Rumble. This was back when they still made movies here in Isla Lucrecia, but the studio I was working with hadn’t paid their protection fees.”

“This sounds all too familiar,” Selene said.

“Different names, same story. This was before Hudson and The Union, but their job was the same. Squeezing every penny they could out of hard working people. Except these fools called themselves The Pearl Swan. A bunch of bulky guys came walking onto the set in crisp white suits. I was in the dressing room, changing into the karate uniform they wanted me to put on for the dojo fight scene we were about to shoot when I hear some screaming coming from outside.

I leave the room and I see a couple of the fellas roughing up the director. Pushing and shaking him around. The rest of the crew is too scared to do anything because they had other men with weapons scattered around the area. Didn’t help that the director wasn’t the most well-liked guy, either.

Anyway, I hear one of the bigger guys, probably the leader, start demanding money from the director. Now the director fellow, Bianchi, was a small, scrawny guy. I remember it vividly; him curling up into a ball as he placed his hands over his head to protect his face while they took turns kicking him like a soccer ball. I couldn’t…”

Rodney clenched his fists together as he recounted the tale. After taking a deep breath through his nostrils, he resumed the story.

“I walked up to them, tapping the leader on his shoulder. I can still visualize his ugly mug; the square jaw. That flat nose. Man looked like he exercised his face, there was so much heft and muscle on it. He had a good few inches on me so he had to look down at me. And boy, did he look at me. You know I’m not the most likable person, Quang. I can admit that. But this guy. Damn, did he look like he hated me.

‘You want some too?’ he shouted at me. I just stood there and stared back at him with this look of silent rage. It took all I had to not strike this man right in his jaw.”

“So what did you do?” Quang asked.

“I laid him out flat!” Rodney stood a couple inches above his seat and threw an uppercut with his right arm. “Man went limp like a ragdoll and landed on his back. The entire set went silent.”

“But I thought you said it took all you had not to hit him!” Selene remarked. Her hands rested on her knees as she leaned in further to listen to the story.

“Well, what I had wasn’t enough.”